Archive for category Planning

One of the most important things I’ve learned is how useful it is and how much more you learn by keeping good records of what you grow and how you grow it. Particularly if you want to save the seeds from your most beloved varieties.

Notebook in the garden

I originally started this weblog as a way to try and organise my records of the garden and food growing activities and to share information, tips, ideas and techniques with other gardeners but by starting this blog the curious thing is that I was compelled to start a paper record too. I seem to have one foot in the ‘only paper will do’ camp and the other on the information super highway. Perhaps I am a Luddite at heart or perhaps I just don’t trust that wherever this website resides will always be there.

The irony is that starting a blog made me start a proper garden notebook going back to scratch. I took it seriously, buying a moleskine notebook no-less. It is a little bible of a book in which I have logged the sowing, transplanting and harvest dates for every thing I’ve grown since 2004 in chronological order. I started at the back of the book working from the first sowing here at Mas du Diable in March 2004 and worked forward in time logging each month until I reached the date I started the book, sometime in 2006. It took ages going through old scraps of paper and notebooks (at least 10) to piece together the first years but it was worth it because the more years you build up the more useful the information becomes. I have carried on logging in the same way and noting key things about the garden and what is happening in it as I work.

Now the beauty of this little book is that I can, at the flick of a couple of pages, wherever I am, see exactly what I sowed on this day 3 years ago for example, or last year or look at what I sowed next month last year, what I was harvesting in the garden or when I pruned the fruit trees. At the front of the book I have a page or two for each vegetable type I grow, in alphabetical order, so that I can easily find the page to make notes about its cultivation; spacing, timing, feeds, growing pains, planting tricks, anything worth noting. In the middle is a page for each month and what should be sown in that month. All really simple but effective. I am fast approaching the point where both ends meet and the thought of having to start a new book is really what triggered this post, should I continue to keep a paper record as well as an online one?

Sometimes I do wonder why I spend so much time posting stuff on this blog when I have my trusty garden notebook at hand. Well a picture tells a thousand words as they say and I could never describe a new variety as well as a picture could. I love capturing the beauty of the vegetables I grow and the seasons as they change. But more importantly I want to be part of a community of gardeners growing food and posting about it on the internet. I learn loads from other garden bloggers and I hope they learn something from me.

So I think I’ll keep scribbling in my little Luddite bible and on this blog because each one helps the other and you never know which one will be there tomorrow.

Winter Lettuces are varieties of lettuces that can be sown late in the season, will tolerate cold and low light levels and still provide leaf pickings for the salad bowl right through winter and into spring. Some of my favourite lettuces are these hardy types because they have robust flavours, crisp leaves and good textures.

Winter Lettuce Rouge Grenobloise

Winter Lettuce Verde D’Inverno

Timing
Lettuces mature in around 50-60 days when grown at optimum temperatures but the lettuce will slow down in cold weather, a trait which gardeners can use to their advantage. In cold weather a lettuce can stand fresh and ready to be picked for 2 or more months, it won’t go to seed and if you can protect the crop from very cold or wet weather and if you can get the timing right it will stand in perfect condition right through winter. So plan your winter crop of lettuce so that it is almost ready to pick by the first frosts of winter. At that stage it is large enough to stand light frost outdoors and undercover survive happily in surounding tempertures of -10c.

Lettuces Winter Density young heads ready to cut

My pick of varieties
To get a good lettuce crop throughout winter it is best to select winter lettuce varieties, those that have proven themselves or been selected for thier growth habit and hardiness. My favourites include:Winter Density (Cos) a lovely solid crisp green heading cos, standing tall and fairly tightly wrapped; excellent undercover in winter and outdoors in late winter/early spring. Rouge Grenobloise (Batavian) Large crispheads with red-tinted ruffled leaves, good flavour, cold hardy and will grow happily in shade; an excellent winter lettuce outdoors. Ubriacona (Loose Leaf Batavian) This Italian Heirloom has beautiful green hearts with red outer edged leaves, performs well and has great taste and texture. Provides cutting lettuce all year and will overwinter in my garden. Verde D’Inverno (Cos) Tall mid green heads crisp leaves with good taste. Stands well through winter. Rougette de Montpelier, (Butterhead) tight heading lettuce with crisp white stalks and soft green leaves tinged red at the edges, this variety can be grown undercover or outdoors but I find the flavour is better and the heads are crisper if grown outdoors. Valdor (Butterhead) I grew this lettuce for the first time 2 years ago so I am still testing it out and cannot thoroughly recommend it yet. It grew well in the polytunnel producing voluminous green heads with large fleshy leaves. But it suffered from mildew undercover, as spring approached and temperatures soured undercover, it may do better outdoors so I’ll give it another try this winter.

It has taken me some time to find the seeds for the varieties I want to grow this year but I’ve finally done it and this is my selection for 2010. Plenty of old reliable must grow varieties, some new things I am desperate to grow for the kitchen, some varieties that I am growing to photograph for seed catalogues, some I am not sure what they are but came by the seeds in swaps and others because well I am obsessed. I want to at least try to grow everything and anything edible I possibly can. You just never know what might turn out to be an edible diamond. So this is my seed list for 2010, there’s a lot of varieties this year and I just hope I can fit them all in.

This is my list of the varieties to grow for 2009. It takes years, a life time probably, to find the very best varieties to suit your growing location and the taste of the cook. I grow a large selection, in small amounts, trying new things and continuing with the crops that really work for us. I really don’t think I will be able to pack this lot in but I am going to have a good go. I am supposed to be scalling back this year, as I won’t be able to spend so much time on the garden, but I just can’t help it so it will be interesting to see what makes it in and what produces well with less input from me.

NB Seeds Removed from list
I’ve had a problem with some of the seeds I’ve received in swaps and through Kokopelli members sharing scheme. The problem has been one of poor viability, I have a load of poor seeds particularly capsicums, old or not stored properly whatever they just won’t germinate so I’ve finally given up on them and removed them from the list after one last go with them last month.
Sweet Cherry (K), Ancho San Luis (SW), Anaheim TMR23 (SW), Cascabella (SW), Chile De Arbol (SW) 2008, Jalapeño C.Annuum (SW) 2008 came from Tesco peppers I believe no germination PasillaBajioC.Annuum(SW), Trinidad Seasoning C.Chinense (SW) poor germ last year, weak plants produced no fruit this year no germination from remaining seeds.

My seed list is now finalised for 2008. I have to admit it is getting a bit out of hand this year with 33 tomato varieties, 18 lettuces and 32 varieties of capsicum, but they are what I like eating the most so there is reason to this madness. It will be a miracle if I can squeeze this lot in but I am going to try, many of the chillis are already growing as house plants still from last season.

This is my list of seeds to grow in 2007. The selection of seeds is fairly extensive and is still being worked on to fine tune and get the best combination of crops for the kitchen throughout the year. Just a quick note on this years selection. I have started weeding out the types of crops that don’t grow so well here, such as root crops, or the stuff we are just not so keen on eating, so that we can make more room for our favourites and more versatile produce for the kitchen. This list has a bias toward heirloom or open pollinated varieties so that we can develop our own little seed bank in time. What I am also starting to look for are varieties of our favourite crops that are more resistant to climate extremes, in particular drought and heat in the summer crops and hardiness in the winter crops.

We are on the second year of trials to find the perfect green courgette; triallingVerde di Milano against Defender(F1) and the cherry tomato Gardeners Delight against Supersweet 100(F1). Apart from that we are still trying to get the right balance of storage and salad onions to keep us through the whole year. We’ve got the brassica selection just about right now apart from cabbage I am still looking for a good winter through to spring cabbage.

Alliums

Garlic, unknown bought bulbs in Italy

Oignon Blanc, De Rebouillon* –Superb variety use young as spring onions or mature as white salad onionssow Spring & Autumn

Aubergine, Ronde de Valence* –I love the look of this one round dark purple fruit with fetching acid green shoulders.

Beans

Broad Bean, Aquadulce Claudia*-We only grow autumn sown broadbeans in order to avoid the blackfly plagues that start in May and this is THE variety best suited to it. Excellent tasting beans to use fresh, freeze or dried.

Pea, Petit Provencal*- round grain pea, sweet and delicious

Pea, Corne de Belier *- mangetout ,very large flat pods crisp and tasty can grow to a height of 2m.

Pea, Kelvedon Wonder –someone gave me these seeds.

French Bean, Duel*- dwarf, prolific crops, over a long period, of long fine green beans. Sow (March) and again mid April French Bean, CosseViolette*- climber needs protection. Large broad purple pods great taste, stringless and tender.

Courgette/Pumpkin, Tromba D’Albenga *- This I saw growing in Italy and I’m very exciting about growing it here. It provides pale green curly courgettes in summer which then mature to enormous long curved buff coloured pumpkins by winter. Grow over a frame to give the pumpkins the hanging space to mature. (some i saw were over 5ft long!)

Pumpkin, Butternut *-Great taste, flexible in the kitchen and a good storer.

Courgette, Defender – Madly prolific can hardly keep up with production grow only 1 or 2 plants this year for trial.

Courgette, Verde di Milano – dark green skin and dense flesh. Trialling for the second year against Defender.

Cucumber, le Genereux – bog standard cucumber can get bitter if left too long, look for a better variety next year.

Kitchen Garden Recipes

Laura Hudson’s gardening notebook – formerly Mas du Diable. It is important that we all know how to grow food, even if we don’t do very much of it, and equally that we all know how to save the seeds of edible and useful plants for the future.

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About Me

I'm Laura, an artist and veg gardener. This is my notebook - a place to keep and share my notes about growing seasonal food and preserving the seeds of edible or useful crops. Most of my growing notes come from the 10 years I spent growing food in France https://masdudiable.wordpress.com/